Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser., 1887-04-08
Give fools their gold 4 knaves their power
Let fortunes bubbles rise and fail;
Who s0vvs a field or trains q flower.
Or plants a tree. is more than all.
Specialties in Farming.
BY PROF. G. G. CROFT.

ClCle. lne auCnOr undertakes 10 snow
that Eastern farmers should abandon
the old system of a multiplicity Of
crops and rath develop specialties, as
fruit growing, potatoraising bee-keep
ing, etc., etc The writer, a farmers
boy, has for a number of years been
giving careful thought to the problem
of betlering the condition of our farm
ers, and his studies lead him to di-
rectly opposite conclusion. The con-
dition of a people devoted to one single
crop is well illustrated IN the South
Atlantic States. In some sections they
grow cotton exclusively, in others to-
bacco, rice, or sugarcane. The corn,
wheat, potatoes. meat, lard, etc., need
ed for the farmers family, are all pur-
chased Here we have whole states of
specialists, and yet l do not believe
there is a more distressed people on
the face of the earth than large pro-
portion of the Southern farmers. Their
system is universally looked upon as
the worst possible for them. The ad =.
vice given them constantly by their
friends is to abandon the one crop
plan and to have diversity-to raise
at least all that their families and their
stock consume. To illustrate the con-
dition of affairs near the most thriving
Southern city of Atlanta, 1 was told
by reliable gentleman there, that
most of the farms within radius of ten
miles of the city were either owned by
the merchants of the city, or were
heavily mortgaged by them, and that
the whole trouble grew out of the fact
that the farmers did not raise their
own supplies, but depended upon
single crop. And so in the West, Mr..
Walsh tell us that the Western grow
ers of corn. wheat and cattle are more
successful than farmers in the East
But he is certainly mistaken. 1t is
very rare to see good farming in the
West compared with what one sees IN
the East. In the West, it is simply a
robbery Of virgin soil. The great
wheat farmers of the Northwest are
land robbers. They are skimming the
new soil, gathering the few heavy
crops which it will bring forth. and
then must inevitably leave it for future
generations at great expense to refer
tilize. So it is with the great cattle
raisers. They have vast unoccupied
areas of public lands. These, free of
rent, may for limited term of years.
be grazed and the cattle produced in
their shiftless and cruel ways. But
that too is changing. The great
ranches are breaking up. The great
wheat and the great corn farms are be-
coming exhausted and will rapidly pass
into the hands of small holders.
In extended tours through the West,
farmers have always, with great unan-
unity, declared that they made moth
ing from their crops, but that all their
profits were in the advance of their
lands. This is certainly the case with
almost all Western farmers. The usual
method is to buy piece Of land with
borrowed money; live on it number
of years until it advances few dol
lars az acre, then sell out and move
to a newer locality, and there do the
same thing over again. The amount
of money which Eastern farmers have
loaned on Western farms is almost
fabulous.
l. A real objection to the one.crop
system is that in our climate we can
never be positively certain that
our crop will not fail. A frost or hail
may kill corn. Wheat has numerous
enemies. The season may be too dry
for potatoes, and they fail to grow, or
too wet, and they rot. No one who
has family to support could depend
upon apples alone, and SO with any
single crop. The fruit specialist raises
all kinds of small and large fruits; if
one kind dies, he falls back on the
others. The market gardener don't
confine himself to cabbage or lettuce,
but grows every kind of garden truck,
and SO is safe against ordinary acci-
dents.
Q. Another objection to single crop
is that it would give the farmer and
his hands employment only small
portion of the year. Potatoes, for in
stance, not more than six months. Hay
only few months, and other single
crops in the same way. But the diff
ferent crops being sOwed at diff
ferent times, and maturing at different
periods, the farmer has the opportunity
OF caring for several as easily as for a
single one.
8. A singlecrop exhausts the ground
much more quickly than a rotation of
crops. The richest Western prairies
only raise few valuable crops of
wheat. The corn crop soon falls to
one half or one-third, and 80 with all
other single crops. The barrenness of
the South at the present is largely due
to this system of farming.
4. Farming is a business which
brings in at best but small amount
of cash. This the farmer must use
with great care if be would amass any
thing. He and his men haze tile time
to raise all that they and the stock
consume. This time they can use in
mo other aoay, hence it is turned into
money by raising provisions. This
makes the great difference in the con-
dition of the farmer in Pennsylvania
over the farmer in the Carollnas or in
Georgia.
Hence, after careful study, l arrive
at the conclusion that the hope of our
farmers, North, South, East and West,
lies in diversified farming. In keep
ing the men and horses always busy on
some market crop, or in raising provi-
sion and forage for home use. But with
all this, l would add some speciality.
One farmer may make specially of
bee-keeping "a much neglected, but
very profitable department of agricul-
ture), another, of poultry, or fine milk,
cheese or butter, or of seed wheat, or
nxraaa aaad ata ato To mn mind haro